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The Development of South African Libraries in the 19Th and 20Th Centuries: Cultural and Political Influences

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The Development of South African Libraries in the 19Th and 20Th Centuries: Cultural and Political Influences CHAPTER TWO 2 THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOUTH AFRICAN LIBRARIES IN THE 19TH AND 20TH CENTURIES: CULTURAL AND POLITICAL INFLUENCES Archie L. Dick Department of Information Science University of Pretoria, Pretoria [email protected] 1. INTRODUCTION There are a number of books and articles on the historical development of libraries in South Africa (Immelman, 1953; Friis, 1962; Kesting, 1980; Manaka, 1981; Walker, 1994; Lor, 1996; Kalley, 2000). They typically highlight the involvement of prominent individuals like Joachim von Dessin, Charles Somerset, John Molteno and others, and associations such as the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the South African Library Association (SALA) – later renamed the South African Institute for Library and Informa- tion Science (SAILIS) – and, more recently, the African Library Association of South Africa (ALASA). Historical writing on South African libraries shows a pattern of progression from private reading societies to private and public subscription libraries subsidised by the government, to Carnegie-funded libraries, to free public libraries with legislation to se- cure their financial viability (Ehlers, 1986). This narrative hides from view some of the cultural and political struggles that led to advances and retreats in a more complex his- tory. It also overlooks the stories of religious, voluntary, cultural and political organisa- tions that shaped the growth of reading and readers, and promoted the establishment of libraries. The library initiatives of these organisations were often provisional and short- lived or eventually incorporated into official library provision structures. They did, however, contribute to greater public awareness of the importance of libraries and read- ing. This chapter describes the library and reading work of some of these organisations in order to tell a wider story of libraries in South Africa, incorporating other reading locales, library advocates and aims for libraries and reading. 2. EARLY INFLUENCES It is well known, for example, that Lord Charles Somerset’s tax on wine financed the 13 2 HISTORY OF LIBRARY DEVELOPMENT founding of the South African Public Library in Cape Town in 1818, with a key focus on education and the youth. What is not well known is that this idea had already taken root in rural areas of the Cape Colony. As early as 1803, Johannes van der Kemp of the Lon- don Missionary Society mooted the idea of setting up a library for his school at Bethels- dorp mission station near Port Elizabeth. The day schools and Sunday schools at Bethels- dorp, Theopolis, Hankey and other mission stations were used by Khoisan children and adults who wanted to learn to read and write. Attendance numbers at these schools re- mained consistently high despite objections from nearby farmers, and other difficulties. In order to supplement religious education at these schools, Van der Kemp re- quested that his friends should send books on geography, arts, manufacture, Latin and Greek grammars and dictionaries, history, chemistry, anatomy, surgery, midwifery and philosophy, among other subjects, for this library (Sales, 1975:43). Although we have no evidence that such a library was indeed set up at the time, the notion of wider read- ing and libraries was established in these mission communities in the early 19th century. Missionaries’ efforts to teach reading and writing raised literacy levels at these mis- sion stations. A census taken in 1846 showed that, at Pacaltsdorp mission station, 92 out of 209 persons were literate. At Bethelsdorp mission station, 40 of the 82 men and 80 of the 250 children were literate. At Genadendal mission station, 110 of 546 men, 163 of 547 women and 326 of 482 children were literate (Cape of Good Hope Legislative Council, 1846). These newly literate readers began to frequent the non-subscribers’ rooms of subscription libraries when these emerged in the Cape Colony from the 1840s onwards. Genadendal Public Library in the Theewaterskloof Municipality in the Western Cape opened its doors to the public in 2002. (Courtesy of the Directorate of Library Services, Western Cape) 14 HISTORY OF LIBRARY DEVELOPMENT 2 For example, after the committee of the Queenstown subscription library, established in 1859, decided to open its non-subscribers’ room containing newspapers and magazines freely to the public, crowds of “coloured readers turn[ed] up merely to look at the pic- tures” (Van der Walt, 1972:61). It was a clear indication of a growing thirst for more reading materials and better library services. This was, however, unsurprising because when these readers had moved from the mission stations to the Kat River settlement near Grahamstown in the 1830s, they enjoyed access to school libraries. This settlement also had a printing press, a circulating library, a reading society and a wide range of newspapers (Read, 1852:123). Missionaries requested the Religious Tract Society, based in London, to supply their schools with both religious and secular materials. These arrived in the form of “libraries” of books and tracts from about 1815 onwards. The tracts were translated into Dutch and the vernacular languages and were distributed widely to individuals and families, who read them voraciously. At Theopolis, for example, a missionary reported that a 14-year- old girl who had just died “had read all the books in the library two or three times over, with many of the books furnished by the Religious Tract Society. Just before she died, she was reading Mr Hill’s Village Dialogues. Her Bible was her constant companion” (Jones, 1850:552). Wellington Public Library in the Cape Winelands was established in 1879. Its building in Cape Dutch style dates back to 1923. (Courtesy of the Directorate of Library Services, Western Cape) 15 2 HISTORY OF LIBRARY DEVELOPMENT 3. THE SEGREGATION ERA The Religious Tract Society contributed to the wider education of these readers by add- ing a programme of popular science publishing in the mid-19th century (Fyfe, 2004:5). It continued the supply of books and religious and “scientific” tracts well into the 20th century and successfully launched a reading room and a library at the Wolhuter hostel for black mineworkers in Johannesburg on 27 April 1939 (United Society for Christian Literature, n.d.:30). This library later became a depot of the Carnegie Non-European Library in the Transvaal, where the mission-educated poet and dramatist H.I.E. Dhlomo was the organiser-librarian from 1937 to 1940 (Everts, 1993). Dhlomo encouraged reading at these library depots by inviting prominent African speakers and producing The Reader’s Companion, in which he discussed library topics and introduced new African writers to the reading public. It included lists of books in Xhosa, Zulu and Sotho, and newspapers in Zulu and English. The library depots of the Carnegie Non-European Library were usually located in schools and were spread across remote parts of the Transvaal (Gauteng today). There were also school library depots in the Or- ange Free State (Free State today). Phyllis Ntantala (1992:86), who taught at the Reginald Cingo High School in Kroonstad in the 1930s, recalls that the school library was heavily used, even over weekends, and that learners bought their own books from money earned from casual jobs. Mutual improvement and self-help organisations that emerged in the second half of the 19th century also discussed the benefits of reading and promoted the growth of a black readership across the country. Sol Plaatje, author and lobbyist, was a member of such a society in Kimberley (The Diamond Fields Advertiser, 1895:3). He combined this work with an interest in libraries and attended the Carnegie Corporation’s landmark library conference in Bloemfontein in 1928. A number of independent library initiatives in the black townships of Johannesburg and Kimberley can be traced to individuals and groups associated with such self-help organisations (Cobley, 1997:63–64). They often envisaged alternative purposes for reading and libraries. For example, the library of the Bantu Men’s Social Centre in Johannesburg, which also became a depot of the Carnegie Non-European Library, sought to link reading and libraries with writing. An editorial in 1938 in The Bantu World – which could have been written by the editor R.V. Selope Thema, who had been the superintendent of this cen- tre, or by Dhlomo – connected the “library movement” with the production of “Bantu literature”. In this way, libraries were claimed as part of a cultural movement by African people to produce their own authors who would “express the feelings, aspirations, thoughts and visions of the race” (The Bantu World, 1938). In the editorial, the library was compared to an “extensive orchard, where one may pick delicious gems and appease their hunger, [and] gather fruit to sell to the world”. This meant that if readers did not find books by African writers on the library shelves, they should be inspired to produce such works of literature themselves. In doing so, they would enter African writers into the English canon of Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth and Dickens. In fact, this is what happened when Peter Abrahams, who worked at the library in 1937, was motivated as a writer upon reading W.E.B du Bois’s The souls of black folk. 16 HISTORY OF LIBRARY DEVELOPMENT 2 A small number of African women also borrowed books from this library. As from the late 1920s, self-help organisations among African women such as the Zenzele (“help yourself”) clubs of the Eastern Cape encouraged reading. These clubs were started by mission-educated African women and sought to improve the lives of rural women by focusing strongly on subsistence farming, cooking skills, cleanliness, child care and health care (Higgs, 2004). Similar examples of independent initiatives to promote reading and libraries were found in Cape Town’s townships. In the 1930s and 1940s, politicians like Zainunissa “Cissy” Gool and writers such as James La Guma and Christian Ziervogel introduced young men and women from the townships to books and music at social events (Soudien, 2000:36).
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